Territory

Today’s post is one which makes me think of my mom, because she would have enjoyed discovering that male and female hummingbirds maintain individual territories, how they select them and so much more. I cannot help but believe that you will also enjoy making these discoveries yourself as well.

Male and females do not live together. The male and female will only be together during the actual act of mating. The male and female each have their own territory or area where they live and will therefore defend. In this post you will learn how hummingbirds select their territory and more.

A hummingbird will select their territory based on the abundance of food, nectar, and water. These things must be available to help ensure the hummingbirds survival. The male hummingbirds’ territory is approximately ¼ an acre in size. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any specifics on the size of the female’s territory. The territory of the female is the area where the nesting site is built and therefore the female will fiercely defend it.

The Female hummingbird will check the strength of a prospective nest site by clinging to it or repeatedly landing on it. It is only after the site passes this test that the female will begin to construct the nest. The nest will be built on the underside of a palm leaf, on the side of a vertical plant stem, on a small branch, on top of a cactus or many other different locations are used and different species have different preferences. Hummingbirds usually build on branches, but the hermit hummingbirds build nests that hang from vegetation or from a vertical plant stem, root, or rock.